Eden, Anthony, 1st earl of Avon (ā`vən), 1897–1977, British statesman. After service in World War I he attended Oxford and entered (1923) Parliament as a Conservative. He soon made his mark as a champion of peace, internationalism, and the League of Nations and was made lord privy seal (1934–35) and "traveling ambassador." He served (1935) as British minister for League affairs and became foreign minister in 1935. He resigned in Feb., 1938, because of his opposition to Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement of the Axis powers, but at the beginning (1939) of World War II he was called back to the cabinet as secretary of state for dominion affairs. After Winston Churchill became (May, 1940) prime minister, Eden was briefly secretary of war before returning to the foreign office in Dec., 1940. He was instrumental in concluding the wartime Anglo-Soviet Alliance and in establishing the United Nations. He remained in Parliament under the Labour government of 1945–51, and with the Conservative victory of 1951 he returned once more to the foreign office. As chairman of the 1954 Geneva Conference, he helped to negotiate a temporary settlement of the conflict in Indochina. He was knighted in 1954 and became prime minister upon Churchill's resignation in 1955. Eden's decision to use armed intervention in the Suez Canal Suez Canal, Arab. Qanat as Suways, waterway of Egypt extending from Port Said to Port Tawfiq (near Suez) and connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Gulf of Suez and thence with the Red Sea. The canal is somewhat more than 100 mi (160 km) long.
..... Click the link for more information. crisis of 1956 provoked great controversy. His health collapsed, and he resigned in Jan., 1957. He was raised to the peerage as earl of Avon in 1961.

Bibliography

See his three volumes of memoirs, Full Circle (1960), Facing the Dictators, 1923–1938 (1962), and The Reckoning (1965); study by G. McDermott (1969); biographies by R. R. James (1986) and D. Carlton (1981).

Eden, (Robert) Anthony, 1st earl of Avon

Eden, photograph by Yousuf Karsh

(born June 12, 1897, Windlestone, Durham, Eng.—died Jan. 14, 1977, Alvediston, Wiltshire) British politician. After combat service in World War I, he was elected to the House of Commons in 1923. He became foreign secretary in 1935 but resigned in 1938 to protest Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement. He held the post again in 1940–45 and in 1951–55, and he helped to settle the Anglo-Iranian oil dispute and arranged an armistice in Indochina. Succeeding Winston Churchill as prime minister in 1955, he attempted to ease international tension by welcoming to Britain Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolay A. Bulganin of the Soviet Union. His fall began when Egypt seized the Suez Canal and he supported an Anglo-French intervention in Egypt (see Suez Crisis). He resigned in 1957, citing ill health.